Re: Apple Drops Backward Compatibility for Next MacOS

[shack@deimos.frii.com (Randy Shackelford)]

In article <28OCT199612481191@vax2.concordia.ca>,
Mitchell Spector <spec@vax2.concordia.ca> wrote:

>>Computers don't improve without newer processors. No successor to the
>>65816 ever left the design phase.
>
>    If Apple had shown an interest in the Apple IIgs (or even a faster
>65C816 for that matter), WDC probably would have finished the 32-bit
>65C832 design. In any case, even a faster 65C816 would have done 
>wonders for helping the GS.

This is putting the cart before the horse. New computers are based on new
processors, not the reverse. WDC needed to build new processors first.
If you read Mensch's foreword in Eyes' and Lichty's 65816 book, which came
out before the IIgs, he pledges that there will be future generations.
The argument that Apple needed to fuel WDC's research doesn't hold up when you
consider that 65816s are used in SNES boxes and 65C02s are in all kinds of
embedded controller systems, from pacemakers to microwave ovens.

>>Memory was still expensive even when the ROM 3 came out. It went through
>>the roof in mid '88, when a set of eight 256K DRAMs was ~$120. Gotta keep
>>in mind the time context. No faster processors were available, memory was
>>expensive, and hard disks were unholy expensive. It's easy to forget that
>>in these days of $200 gigabyte hard disks and $100 16 mb SIMMs.
>
>    True, I remember that all too well (I recall paying several hundred
>dollars just to add 768K to my Apple IIgs Memory Expansion Card in 1988).
>Still, why was it the Macintosh II, SE and Plus continued to ship with 1MB 
>RAM as standard in 1988, while the Apple IIgs shipped with only 256K? It
>was no less expensive to supply those machines with that amount of RAM.
>As well, the II and SE had support for internal hardrives which you had
>the option of buying, why didn't Apple do the same for the Apple IIgs?

Another case of present-centric thinking. There were no 2.5" hard disks or
even 3.5"x1" drives in '86 or '89. Of course, a 5.25" wouldn't fit inside a 
IIgs. Power supplies still took up a lot of internal space too before they
were shrunk down.

As far as memory amounts, remember that an SE cost >$3000 and a Mac II >$5000
in '87. So putting a meg in a box jacked the price. You wouldn't have wanted
a 1 mb IIgs box to top $2000 I bet.

>    So that argument holds when you just focus on one computer, but then
>falls to pieces when you see the _same_ company shipping their _other_
>computers with these supposedly "unaffordable" extras. I see a bias here,
>when a Mac Plus could ship with 1MB, but not a IIgs. The GS *required* that
>1MB of RAM for running software just as much as the Mac Plus! Also, keep in
>mind Apple bought things like memory and hardrives in bulk, so they paid 
>much less than the public. I don't buy these excuses...

But the list on a Plus was $2495 or so and it was $999 on a IIgs. I recall
people saying they paid $1400 to up a Plus to 4 mb in those days.

>>If you want a new up do date computer with Apple II compatibility on a card,
>>all you need is a Powermac with a PCI Apple II card to go in it. Would everyone
>>be happy if there were such a card?
>
>    I wanted an enhanced Apple IIgs, not a Macintosh. The two are not the
>same, even though they may externally look and (to some extent) even feel
>and act the same.

It's really beyond me how anyone who has used Apple products would want to use
anything else. I think a PCI powermac which could run II software would be
what a IIgs should be today. Able to run the old stuff, but unencumbered by
having the core hardware compatible with 10+ year old hardware.
-- 
Randy Shackelford                                 
shack@frii.com